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Art by Stephanie Hans from The Dark Tower - The Gunslinger - The Man in Black #3
“The remains of the wood he had carried had turned to ironwood, and the man in black was a laughing skeleton in a rotting black robe, more bones in this place of bones, one more skull in Golgotha.
The gunslinger stood up and looked around. He looked at the light and saw that the light was good. With a sudden quick gesture he reached toward the remains of his companion of the night before.., a night that had somehow lasted ten years. He broke off Walter’s jawbone and jammed it carelessly into the left hip pocket of his jeans — a fitting enough replacement for the one lost under the mountains.
The Tower. Somewhere ahead, it waited for him — the nexus of Time, the nexus of Size. He began west again, his back set against the sunrise, heading toward the ocean, realizing thata great passage of his life had come and gone. “I loved you, Jake,” he said aloud.”
The Dark Tower (The Gunslinger) | Stephen King
“What was it?” The gunslinger asked. His words were blurred and shaky. He felt that if he tried to rise, his legs would buckle.
“The universe,” the man in black said carelessly.
The Dark Tower (The Gunslinger) | Stephen King
The gunslinger drew with blinding speed and fired twelve times. The gun-flashes dimmed the sun itself, and the pounding of the explosions slammed back from the rock-faced escarpments behind them.
“Now,” the man in black said, laughing. “Oh, now. We make great magic together, you and I. You kill me no more than you kill yourself.”
He withdrew, walking backwards, facing the gunslinger, grinning. “Come. Come. Come.”
The gunslinger followed him in broken boots to the place of counseling.
The Dark Tower (The Gunslinger) | Stephen King
“I’m going to tell your future, Roland. Seven cards must be turned, one at a time, and placed in conjunction with the others. I’ve not done this for over three hundred years. And I suspect I’ve never read one quite like yours.” The mocking note was creeping in again, like a Kuvian night-soldier with a killing knife gripped in one hand. “You are the world’s last adventurer. The last crusader. How that must please you, Roland! Yet you have no idea how close you stand to the Tower now, how close in time. Worlds turn about your head.”
“Read my fortune then,”
The Dark Tower (The Gunslinger) | Stephen King | Art by Stephanie Hans
He comes to the corner and stands with his bookbag at his side. Traffic roars by - grunting blue-and-white busses, yellow taxis, Volkswagens, a large truck. He is just a boy, but not average, and he sees the man who kills him out of the corner of his eye. It is the man in black, and he doesn’t see the face, only the swirling robe, the outstretched hands, and the hard, professional grin. He falls into the street with his arms outstretched, not letting go of the bookbag which contains Mrs. Greta Shaw’s extremely professional lunch. There is a brief glance through a polarized windshield at the horrified face of a businessman wearing a dark-blue hat in the band of which is a small, jaunty feather. Somewhere a radio is blasting rock and roll. An old woman on the far curb screams - she is wearing a black hat with a net. Nothing jaunty about that black net; it is like a mourner’s veil. Jake feels nothing but surprise and his usual sense of headlong bewilderment - is this how it ends? Before he’s bowled better than two-seventy? He lands hard in the street and looks at an asphalt-sealed crack some two inches from his eyes. The bookbag is jolted from his hand. He is wondering if he has skinned his knees when the car belonging to the businessman wearing the blue hat with the jaunty feather passes over him. It is a big blue 1976 Cadillac with whitewall Firestone tires. The car is almost exactly the same color as the businessman’s hat. It breaks Jake’s back, mushes his guts to gravy, and sends blood from his mouth in a high-pressure jet. He turns his head and sees the Cadillac’s flaming taillights and smoke spurting from beneath its locked rear wheels. The car has also run over his bookbag and left a wide black tread on it. He turns his head the other way and sees a large gray Ford screaming to a stop inches from his body. A black fellow who has been selling pretzels and sodas from a pushcart is coming toward him on the run. Blood runs from Jake’s nose, ears, eyes, rectum. His genitals have been squashed. He wonders irritably how badly he has skinned his knees. He wonders if he’ll be late for school. Now the driver of the Cadillac is running toward him, babbling. Somewhere a terrible, calm voice, the voice of doom, says: “I am a priest. Let me through. An Act of Contrition…”
He sees the black robe and knows sudden horror. It is him, the man in black. Jake turns his face away with the last of his strength. Somewhere a radio is playing a song by the rock group Kiss. He sees his own hand trailing on the pavement, small, white, shapely. He has never bitten his nails.
Looking at his hand, Jake dies.Stephen King | The Gunslinger
“Hello, boys.”
I have to say. Working on Dark Tower gives me the occasion to try a lot of things. It really helps me to grow as an artist.
